French hospitals have been ordered to make preparations for an imminent war in Europe as Germany says it is on alert for Russia’s military drills. 

According to documents revealed by Le Canard Enchaîné, France’s health ministry has instructed healthcare organizations nationwide to gear up for a potential ‘major engagement’ anticipated by March 2026.

The French government is foreseeing a scenario in which the country could act as a support state, poised to receive a large influx of injured soldiers from France and other European countries.

This directive is designed to ‘forecast, prepare, and address the health requirements of the population, while incorporating the specific defense needs within the healthcare sector’.

The health ministry emphasized: ‘One of the identified risks is a major engagement, where the health sector would need to manage a potentially significant surge of casualties from overseas.

‘It is therefore a question for our health system of anticipating the care of military patients in the civilian health system’.

It comes after Germany’s chief of defence Carsten Breuer said NATO and his nation’s forces will be on alert ahead of Russian military drills. 

Though Breuer does not anticipate Vladimir Putin’s forces launching an attack on NATO regions as Russia performs military drills in Belarus via the Zapad 2025 exercise, he noted that his country will ‘remain vigilant’.

The Khmelyovka firing range during amphibious assault training, part of the active phase of the ‘Zapad-2021’ military exercises conducted by the armed forces of Russia and Belarus in the Kaliningrad Region, Russia, on September 11, 2021

The ‘Zapad-2021’ joint military drills of the armed forces of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus at the Mulino army base in the Nizhny Novgorod region

Russia is set to launch the Zapad 2025 training exercise in a few weeks 

Breuer said that though he doesn’t expect Vladimir Putin’s (pictured) forces to attack NATO territory as Russia conducts military training in Belarus, his nation would ‘be on… guard’

He said: ‘We don’t have any indication that preparations for an attack are taken under the cover of the exercise. But we will be on our guard, not just the German forces, but NATO’.

This comes amid fears that the world is on the brink of a third World War that, according to NATO chief Mark Rutte, will be started by Russia and China. 

He warned in July that the combined attacks from the Chinese and Russian leaders could trigger a World War nightmare and bring the planet to the brink of Armageddon. 

According to the NATO chief, China would start by seeking to grab Taiwan – while ensuring the Kremlin dictator simultaneously attacks NATO territory, amid fears Putin is anyway eyeing the Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, formerly part of the USSR.

Russia today hit back at ex-Netherlands premier Rutte, claiming he had ‘gorged on too many of the magic mushrooms beloved by the Dutch’, while warning he should look forward to a future in a hellish Siberian labour camp.

Stressing the urgent need to re-arm and boost military budgets, Rutte told the New York Times in a chilling vision of the future: ‘Let’s not be naïve about this.

‘If Xi Jinping would attack Taiwan, he would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, residing in Moscow, and telling him, “Hey, I’m going to do this, and I need you to to keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory”.

‘That is most likely the way this will progress, and to deter them, we need to do two things’ he added.

Continuing his terrifying account, Rutte said: ‘One is that NATO, collectively, being so strong that the Russians will never do this. 

‘And second, working together with the Indo-Pacific – something President [Donald] Trump is very much promoting, because we have this close interconnectedness, working together on defence industry, innovation between NATO and the Indo-Pacific.’

Rutte warned that Putin is rearming at a fast pace, insisting that Western countries must increase defence spending.

‘We have an enormous geopolitical challenge on our hands,’ he said.

‘And that is first of all Russia, which is reconstituting itself at a pace and a speed which is unparalleled in recent history.

A soldier fires a mortar towards positions of Russian troops near Kostyantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025

Zapad-2023 joint Russian-Belorussian drills

This comes amid fears that the world is on the brink of a third World War that, according to NATO chief Mark Rutte, will be started by Russia and China

‘They are now producing three times as much ammunition in three months as the whole of NATO is doing in a year.

‘This is unsustainable, but the Russians are working together with the North Koreans, with the Chinese and Iranians, the mullahs, in fighting this unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.

‘So here, the Indo-Pacific and your Atlantic are getting more and more interconnected. We know that China has its eye on Taiwan.’